THAILAND Speakers (Webinar Oct.2021)

Claire Bury is currently Deputy Director-General in DG Health and Food Safety with responsibility for food safety and sustainability. She is also a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges.

She was previously Deputy Director-General for the Digital Single Market in DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology and Director of Modernisation of the Single Market in Directorate General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.

Before that, she was Head of Unit for Company Law, Corporate Governance and Financial Crime in Directorate General Internal Market and Services, and Deputy Head of Cabinet to Internal Market Commissioners Charlie McCreevy and Frits Bolkestein. 

An English barrister by training, she worked in the Commission's Legal Service and, before coming to Brussels, in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

                                                                                                            
Deputy Secretary-General

Food and Drug Administration

Ministry of Public Health

Thailand

Elizabeth Tayler
The Tripartite Joint Secretariat, World Health Organisation - WHO

Liz Tayler works is the technical lead for WHO in the Tripartite Joint Secretariat for AMR, supporting the  collaboration between FAO, OIE,  UNEP and WHO at global, regional and country levels.  She has lead the development of the Tripartite Strategy and the development of the AMR MPTF .  Her previous role was leading the team supporting AMR National Action Plans and development

Liz has spent much of her professional life working for the UK Department for International Development  and the UK NHS.    Liz trained as a doctor at Oxford and Cambridge universities, started life as a physician and then trained in Public health.

Velina is currently appointed Deputy Head of Unit of the Health Security Unit of Directorate-General Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) of the European Commission. After studying international relations and politics at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom, Velina obtained her Masters in international relations, law and economics at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. Velina joined the European Commission in 2009 working in Directorate-General Eurostat and Directorate-General Climate action. Velina joined the Commission’s public health department in 2015, working on diverse files related to serious cross-border health threats, communicable disease, preparedness, health security, risk communication and antimicrobial resistance.

Arjan Stegeman is full professor of Farm Animal Health and Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He is a veterinarian by training and a diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Public Health. His research is focused on the epidemiology of infectious diseases in farmed animals aiming to unravel the mechanisms that determine the population dynamics of infections and establish the effectiveness of intervention measures. For that goal his group applies animal experiments, field studies and mathematical modelling. Arjan is chair of the Dutch expert group on animal diseases and vice-chair of the outbreak management team zoonotic diseases. In addition he is a board member of the Netherlands Drugs Institute (SDA) that is responsible for bench marking antimicrobial use in animal populations.

Dr Nina Zhu is the Research Lead for Population Health & Policy Theme in the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Healthcare Associated Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance at Imperial College London, in partnership with UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA, formerly Public Health England), Warwick University and Imperial College Health Partners. She is an epidemiologist utilising mathematical modelling to help understand how infection and AMR emerge and transmit across patient pathways, and evaluate clinical and economic outmodes of health interventions and policies. She also works with hospital and regional health agencies to improve surveillance data quality and integration. Since the COVID-19 pandemic onset, she has led multiple projects funded by WHO, UK Department of Health, and UKHSA, to use linked patient data to assess the impact of COVID-19 and national responses on the epidemiology of community and healthcare-acquired infections, patterns of antimicrobial prescribing practices, and develop novel methods for surveillance of hospital-onset COVID-19. She is also the modeller of the ESRC funded project to improve antibiotic use along the surgical pathway and reduce surgical site infection in collaboration with South Africa, Rwanda, and India.

Dr Lesa Thompson graduated from the Royal (Dick) School of
Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh, the UK. Since then she has
worked in both clinical veterinary practice and academia. After
receiving her PhD in One Health from Hokkaido University in
Japan, she became a Regional Project Officer for the World
Organisation for Animal Health (the OIE), working at the Regional
Representation for Asia and the Pacific. As part of the One Health
team in the Tokyo office, she is involved in many activities
involving both animal and human health - including antimicrobial
resistance, zoonotic diseases and wildlife health.

Rungtip Chuanchuen is a veterinary professor at Faculty of Veterinary Science, Chulalongkorn University. She is director of Center of Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring in Foodborne Pathogens (in cooperation with WHO), Global Infections Network: South-East Asia and Western Pacific region and FAO Reference Center for Antimicrobial Resistance. She is also now head of Research Unit on Microbial Food Safety and Antimicrobial Resistance. Her research has focused on epidemiology and mechanisms of AMR in bacteria associated food animals, foodborne pathogens, and nosocomial pathogens. She is actively involved in strategic actions to control and prevention AMR in Thailand and other Asian countries, particulary building capacity of AMR surveillance and laboratories, country situational analysis and external quality assurance (EQA) for antimicrobial susceptibility in veterinary laboratories in Asia.

Dr. Norio Ohmagari is acting as Director, AMR Clinical Reference Center and Director, Disease Control and Prevention Center of National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM), Japan. Dr. Ohmagari has completed his clinical fellowship in Infectious Diseases at University of Texas-Houston. After serving as chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Shizuoka Cancer Center, in 2011 Dr. Ohmagari moved to NCGM which is one of six national medical centers in Japan with infectious diseases as main objective. At NCGM, Dr. Ohmagari has been acting as Director of the Disease Control and Prevention Center since 2012. He also serves as the director of AMR Clinical Reference Center, which is commissioned by Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan. Dr. Ohmagari is engaged in the care, prevention and research of infectious diseases from a global perspective. As a physician, Dr. Ohmagari is directly involved in the clinical management of patients with infectious diseases. Dr. Ohmagari is also actively working on activities with controlling antimicrobial resistance in Japan. At the same time, Dr. Ohmagari is working on the on-site response in infectious disease crisis management in Japan.

Mr Giuseppe Busini took up duties as Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to the Kingdom of Thailand in September 2018. Mr Busini has worked in the EU External Relations service for more than 20 years, covering, amongst other appointments, South Caucasus, Iran, Central Asia, the Gulf Cooperation Council and India. Before his appointment to Bangkok, he was responsible for the EU's relations with ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional Forum. Mr Busini holds a master degree with honours in Political Science and a PhD in International Relations and Contemporary History, both obtained at the University of Perugia in Italy.

Since 1 February 2016, Dr. Koen Van Dyck is Head of Unit Bilateral International relations in DG Health & Food Safety (DG SANTE) of the European Commission. Within his role, he is leading discussions of the SPS Chapter within Free Trade Negotiations with different third countries and chairing from EU side the SPS Committee meeting implementing the concluded FTAs e.g. Japan, Canada.

Between 1 September 2010 and 1 February 2016, he was Head of Unit of the Unit Food Hygiene, Alert system and training in the Health & Consumer Protection Directorate General (DG SANCO). Within this role, he is responsible for Food and Feed Hygiene legislation, Zoonose and BSE within the European Union, Rapid Alert system for Food and feed (RASFF) and DG SANTE "Better training For Safer Food" programme and capacity building activities in the SPS field in developing countries.

He also headed the task force coordinating the actions related to Antimicrobial Resistance within the European Commission and to the adoption of the EU AMR action plan in June 2017. In 1999 he joined the European Commission as veterinary inspector at the Food and Veterinary Office – Health & Consumer Protection Directorate General (DG SANCO) and conducted audits in the Member States and Third countries within the sector food of animal origin and BSE.

John F. Ryan is Director of the Commission Public Health directorate since September 2016.

He is currently the Commission representative on the Board of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Current priorities include management of the Covid pandemic, implementation of an EU cancer plan, antimicrobial resistance, vaccination policies, and the implementation of financial instruments to support health, including research.

Peter Beyer, a trained lawyer, is Head of Unit at the AMR Division of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva leading a team working on impact initiatives and research coordination. He focuses on developing global instruments and initiatives to address antimicrobial resistance and to foster the development of new antimicrobial treatments. Peter was instrumental in setting up the Global Antibiotic R&D Partnership (GARDP), a foundation that is developing new antibacterial treatments as well as AMR Action Fund, an industry led investment fund. He was responsible for WHO’s work on intellectual property and access to medicines setting up the trilateral collaboration among the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and WHO as well as providing technical assistance to countries to facilitate access to affordable HIV and hepatitis treatments. He is the chair of the Expert Advisory Group of the Medicines Patent Pool. Previously, Peter Beyer was a Legal Advisor to the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in Berne. He negotiated bilateral free trade agreements for the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and was responsible for the bilateral dialogue between Switzerland and China on intellectual property. Prior to joining the Swiss civil service, Peter Beyer worked with the Ecologic Institute in Berlin on environmental law and policy. He holds a PhD from Freiburg University on European environmental law and was admitted to bar in Berlin in 2002.

Dr. Regina Berba is Professor at the University of the Philippines
College of Medicine and and Chair of the Hospital Infection
Control Unit at the Philippine General Hospital. She is also the
Head of the Section of Infectious Diseases at The Medical City.
Dr. Berba heads the steering committee of the National
Antimicrobial Stewardship Program of the Philippines. She also
lead author of the Department of Health Administrative Order
2016-002 also called “National Policy on Infection Prevention and
Control in Healthcare Facilities in the Philippines” which
institutionalized the requirement of an Infection Prevention and
Control (IPC) program in every hospital.

Sasisopin Kiertiburanakul is a Professor of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand. She is the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the assistant to the Dean for Corporate Communication.
She is also the Royal College of Physicians of Thailand committee and the secretary of the Infectious Disease Association of Thailand and the Thai AIDS Society.
Prof. Kiertiburanakul’s research focuses on general
infectious diseases, antimicrobial treatment, and HIV.
She is an author, co-authored, and collaborated on
more than 200 articles published in peer-reviewed
medical journals. She is also a committee member and
consultant of various national organizations, for example, the Ministry of Public Health and the
National HIV Guidelines Committee.

Annalisa Pantosti has a degree in Medicine and Surgery and specializations in Infectious Diseases and  Internal Medicine from the University of Rome. She has been Director of the Unit of Antimicrobial Resistance and Special Pathogens in the Italian Public Health Institute. 

At present she collaborates with ISS as an AMR expert.  She has set up and coordinated  the national surveillance of AMR; has participated in the preparation of the first AMR National Action Plan and is currently involved in updating the new plan at the Ministry of Health. She has authored more than 150 papers in peer reviewed journals.

Dominique L. Monnet joined ECDC in October 2007 to lead ECDC’s Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare-Associated Infections Programme.  He is also representing ECDC in the EU-US Transatlantic Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance (TATFAR).

Before joining ECDC, he worked in French hospitals, at the US CDC (1993-1995) and at the Danish Statens Serum Institut (1997-2007) where he was coordinating surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial consumption in humans in Denmark.

His research interests include surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial consumption, the relationship between consumption of antimicrobials and resistance, and the factors that affect antimicrobial usage, both in hospitals and primary care.

Dr Mary Joy Gordoncillo is a veterinarian with a Masters degree in tropical veterinary science and a PhD in veterinary pubic health. Her international career has largely been devoted to understanding and managing antimicrobial resistance, zoonoses, and transboundary animal diseases in the Asia-Pacific region.

Currently, as the AMR Regional Project Coordinator at the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Disease Operations (ECTAD) her work at the Food and Agriculture Organization Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAO RAP) has mostly been towards developing tools, strategies, and innovative solutions to mitigate antimicrobial resistance in food and agriculture sectors in Asia.

Dr. Walasinee Sakcamduang (Moonarmart) graduated from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kasetsart University, in 1994. She started her career as a small animal and equine veterinarian before she joined the Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University, in 2000. 

She received PhD from the Royal Veterinary College, University of London in 2008. Her research interests lie in cardiovascular medicine, infectious diseases, antimicrobial usage, antimicrobial resistance, epidemiology, and one health with 25 international publications in peer-reviewed journals.  

She is currently Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University and Acting Head of the Thai National Wildlife Health Center.

Peter is an Infectious Diseases Physician and Clinical Microbiologist at the Canberra Hospital. He is also a Professor in the Medical School of the Australian National University.

Particular interests are antibiotic resistance, infection control and hospital acquired infections. His PhD was on the topic of antibiotic resistance and One Health.

He is the inaugural and current patron of the Australian College for Infection Prevention and Control.

He is member of many national and international committees, including as an expert to the World Health Organization (WHO) on the issue of antibiotic resistance and the use of antibiotics in food animals since 2000.

In June 2009 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to Medicine in Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Infection Control.

Mr. Hung, Nguyen Viet, an expert on public health sector in Vietnam. He graduated from Hanoi Medical University with a master's program in public health. He also have bachelor of economic law from Hanoi Law University.

He has 16 years’ experience worked on community development focus on primary health care, prevention and intervention infection disease in countryside. He had research projects on pulmonary tuberculosis and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Hanoi, Vietnam.

He was provided consultant for Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Vietnam on prevent antibiotic resistance for humans from sustainable agricultural and livestock development activities.

John F. Ryan is Director of the Commission Public Health directorate since September 2016.

He is currently the Commission representative on the Board of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Current priorities include management of the Covid pandemic, implementation of an EU cancer plan, antimicrobial resistance, vaccination policies, and the implementation of financial instruments to support health, including research.

Dr Andrea Ammon, MD, MPH, was appointed Director of ECDC in June 2017.
From April 2011 to April 2015, Andrea Ammon was Deputy to the Director and Head of Unit for Resource Management and Coordination. From May 2015, she was ECDC’s Acting Director.
Andrea joined ECDC as the Head of the Surveillance Unit in 2005. The unit was responsible for developing The European Surveillance System (TESSy), implementing a long-term surveillance strategy for the European Union (EU), evaluating the Dedicated Surveillance Networks (DSN), performing step-by-step transfer of DSN activities to ECDC, revising the EU case definitions and producing an Annual Epidemiological Report on infectious diseases in the EU.
Prior to joining the ECDC, Dr Ammon served in several roles at the Robert Koch-Institute, in Berlin, Germany, most recently as Head of Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology. In this capacity, she maintained and further developed the German national surveillance system; coordinated the national outbreak response team for current and emerging infections; coordinated emergency planning for influenza; directed the national Field Epidemiology Training Programme; coordinated epidemiological research programmes in infectious diseases and provided scientific advice for government Ministries, Members of Parliament, and the public.

Laxminarayan is founder and director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) in Washington, D.C. and New Delhi, and a senior research scholar at Princeton University. He is an affiliate professor at the University of Washington and a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and at the University of Kwazulu Natal in South Africa. Laxminarayan chairs the board of GARDP, a global product development partnership created by the World Health Organization, that aims to develop and deliver new treatments for bacterial infections. He is founder and board chair at HealthCubed, which works to improve access to healthcare and diagnostics worldwide.

Since 1995, Laxminarayan has worked to improve the understanding of antibiotic resistance as a problem of managing a shared global resource. His work encompasses extensive peer-reviewed research, public outreach, and direct engagement across Asia and Africa through the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership. Through his prolific research, active public outreach (including a TED talk that has been viewed over a million times) and sustained policy engagement, he has played a central role in bringing the issue of drug resistance to the attention of leaders and policymakers worldwide and to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2016.

Robert Skov graduated as medical doctor from University of
Copenhagen (1987) and is a specialist in clinical microbiology
(2003). Robert has been working on antimicrobial resistance
throughout his career and has more than 20 years experience as
Public Health microbiologist. He holds a position as AMR
coordinator at Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen and been a
member of Danish and international expert groups on AMR
including on One health cross sectorial committees. Since 2019
he has been the scientific lead of the International Centre for
Antimicrobial resistance Solutions (ICARS).

Prof Dr Latiffah Hassan is a veterinary public health epidemiologist and academician at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). She graduated with a DVM at UPM and later received her doctorate degree from Cornell University. Her research interest covers one health issues, specifically epidemiology of emerging infections and antimicrobial resistance. She sits in Editorial Boards of a few top ranking academic journals and is an avid advocate for One Health. She has been regularly invited to speak at national and international seminars and conferences, and is a familiar face at interagency platforms locally and internationally.  Currently, she is the Head of the Department of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnostics at UPM as well as the Coordinator of Malaysia One Health University Network (MyOHUN).

Caroline qualified as a veterinary practitioner in 1993, in Dublin Ireland. She spent 12 years in mixed practice in the UK and Ireland.  Caroline  completed a Masters in food safety and environmental health in 2007. She joined the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine in Ireland in 2007 as a veterinary inspector in the medicines division. In 2017 she became a superintending veterinary inspector in AMR division and programme manager for Ireland’s first National Action plan to address AMR. She was awarded a diploma in leadaership in 2019 and a professional certificate in governance in 2021.

Gaëlle Vandermeulen is a “One World, One Health” scientific and strategic advisor for the Belgian Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment. She is a member of the NAP AMR coordination team. She holds a Master in Pharmacy, a PhD in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences and a Master in Management.

Amit Khurana is director of the food safety and toxins programme at the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi. He has been leading the Centre’s work towards containing antimicrobial resistance from animal and environmental dimensions in India and in the global south. He researches and advocates for the required global guidance on AMR, specifically in view of the low- and middle-income countries as well as pushes for a suitable national policy framework and supports implementation at the local level.

Dr Nithima Sumpradit is a senior pharmacist and the head of system research and development unit at the Medicines Regulation Division, Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand. She serves as a focal point for Thailand’s National Strategic Plan on AMR, a secretary team for the National Policy Committee on AMR, a programme manager of the Royal Thai Government and WHO Country Cooperation Programme on AMR, and an initiator of the Antibiotics Smart Use project. Her areas of interest are medicine use behavior of health professionals and patients, drug regulation, and antimicrobial resistance.

Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Australia

Dr. Mark Schipp was appointed Chief Veterinary Officer of Australia in 2011.
He is Australia’s Delegate at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Immediate Past President of the OIE World Assembly and a member of OIE council.
Dr. Schipp leads Australia’s national responses to emergency animal disease incursions. He works to strengthen the veterinary services of countries in our region so they are able to detect and respond to emerging infectious diseases of concern to both human and animal health. He has been active in leading Australian agriculture’s response to the global threat of antimicrobial resistance.

Head of Unit SANTE G5: Animal welfare and Antimicrobial Resistance, European Commission, Belgium

Veterinarian graduated in Milan and policy official at the European Commission since February 1999.

Andrea is now leading the Unit Animal Welfare and Anti-Microbial resistance in DG Health and Food Safety. The Unit is dedicated to the implementation and the reform of the relevant EU legislation and coordinates the activities of the DG related to fight anti-microbial resistance (AMR) including the management of the One Health Network.

In his career Andrea has been dealing with several strategic and policy initiatives in the area of animal health and welfare first at the Ministry of Health in Rome than at the EU Commission. For a five years period until September 2020, he also supervised the Unit in charge of the eradication of animal diseases, and he has coordinated the implementation of the Regulation on official controls in the food, and feed area.

Concerning animal welfare, Andrea has been involved in several policy initiatives both in the EU and at international level including the setting of the first international standards at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

Mr Gajdos started his career with three years as Desk Officer in the Department for East Asia and the Pacific, at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic. 

Before working as Deputy Head of Delegation of the European Union to ASEAN, he spent four years as Third Secretary (Political), within the Embassy of the Slovak Republic to the People’s Republic of China.